Kickstarter

… an NB-IoT Arduino shield which contains a Sara N2 module that can talk to an NB-IoT network. Nice. All you need is a SIM card and be in a country that’s supporting this new mobile network and your device will be able to roam the countryside with full internet coverage. No need for LoRa.

and another all-in-one Arduino platform based on the ATmega328, containing sensors, ultrasonic range finders, LCD screen and other bits. The creator has also made some instructional videos for a dozen projects that you can create yourself. Looks pretty good for someone wanting to get into electronics.

Remember the SmartiPi Touch? Well, there’s a small Kickstarter to create a small cover for the back of these so that you can hide any expansion boards. If you have one of the originals, then you can bolt this on to the back.

This next one is from down-under and is a short programming course for Python divided up into 8 parts. They’ve raised 3 Kickstarters before and this one is raising a lot of interest as well. So, looks like a good thing if you want to learn Python.

Pixel 2.0 is the next release of a previous Kickstarter. It contains the new Atmel SAMD21, SD slot and a 128 by 128 OLED display. It’s compatible with the Arduino IDE and even compatible with AdaFruit’s graphics library.

If you want to hack around with your car, then the Macchina is for you. It’s gaining a lot of interest. It’s an OBD based device that claims it can talk to almost every vehicle manufacturer out there. It runs the SAM3x8e chip, which is Arduino IDE compatible, and has an SD slot, LEDs and a header for GPS, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, XBee, Ethernet and breakout boards allowing you to extend it further.

Then there’s the PLEN Cube. It’s another robot. I guess at least this one has some sort of proven track record, but really robots are still gimmicks at this stage.

Look, don’t get me wrong, they will be our overlords in years to come, but at this stage they’re still just a novelty. However, this one is probably the closest that we’re getting to some sort of reasonable functionality.

IndieGoGo

There’s always a bunch of useless stuff on IndieGoGo, but I found the Matrix Voice, which is an open source board taking on voice services like the Amazon Echo. Contains an ESP32, a ring of RGB LEDs, an array of 7 MEMS mics and a Xilinx Spartan6 FPGA. It also has a Pi compatible 40 pin GPIO header. You can connect it to Amazon’s Alexa using a Pi, or run PocketSphinx on the board.

CrowdSupply

Over at Crowd Supply there’s the JuicyBoard, which has nothing to do with fruit based SBCs.

It’s a modular platform based on the LPC1769 which is an ARM Cortex-M3 SoC. It runs off between 9 and 24 volts supplying 5 and 3.3 volts to modules that can be plugged in to edge connector style headers. There’s a range of modules from stepper drivers, to NFET switches, GPIOs, breakouts and sensors. Looks like a fairly decent platform for robotics.

Others

The Open-Q 650 is a reference design camera board that can stream up to three 4K H264 video streams. Runs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 which contains a dual core Cortex-A72, quad core Cortex-A53, Adreno 510 GPU and Hexagon V56 DSP with 2G DDR3. If all that went over your head, then basically it’s capable of real-time tracking, motion detection and facial recognition. It’s one pretty cool product, but unfortunately has a price tag that you’d normally find on a house. However, it won’t be long before it gets cheaper.

And a small stepper motor driver board based on the VID6606 chip designed to drive up to 4 of the X27 steppers using 5v logic. These types of steppers are designed to drive needle gauges as you’d find in vehicles. I’m tempted to get one of these as I have a project coming up where I’ll need one.

Or if you’re looking at controlling a bucket load of servo motors, then this one will control up to 20 of the things. Access is via I2C and it’s designed to be stacked onto a WeMos, so you can potentially control 80 servos at once from one I2C bus.

ArduSHIELD is a simple concept, but pretty useful to have around. It accepts all the popular Arduino boards and breaks out the pins for a breadboard. So, you can use it as either shield or base board. I wanted to make one of these for my tests in board reviews, but I think I’ll just buy this one.

The Octosonar is a small board designed to control up to 8 HC-SR04 ultrasonic range sensors over I2C. It handles all the complex timing and interrupts for you, so just plonk it into your Uber robot and go.

This handy little board is a bridge between I2C and OneWire devices. Can handle a 400kHz I2C bus speed, and works on all the common logic levels. You also have access to adjust the OneWire timings to accommodate different devices.

I’ve added a new store called Little Bird Electronics this week. They have designed their own Learning Kit for the Arduino Uno. It’s pretty good value too, considering the amount of stuff you get in it and it’s one of the few that’s designed specifically for the Ozzie STEM school curriculum. Nice one.

Then Little Bird have an 800 x 480 resolution HDMI TFT touch screen, which is designed for a Pi, but can be used on anything that has a Pi GPIO header. Or you could use it as a plain HDMI display when powered from USB. This one is the 7 inch display,

Misc

Oh, before I go. There’s one last one, which is a new Raspberry Pi called the Pi Zero W. This new version contains the same core as the Pi Zero, but now has on-board WiFi and Bluetooth. This is something that really would have been good to see in the original version, but anyway. This makes the Pi Zero a pretty formidable board now.

So much has happened recently that the Roundup of New Maker Products is split into two. This is all the rest of the stuff. So, go and hide your wallets! Continue reading Weekly Roundup #64 – New Maker Products→

So much has happened recently that the Roundup of New Maker Products is split into two. This is all the Crowd Funding and Tindie stuff. So, go and hide your wallets! Continue reading Weekly Roundup #63 – New Maker Products→

This first Weeky Roundup of the year and we're already seeing lots of new goodies from SBCs, to WiFi modules, but really a tonne of new SBCs. Continue reading Weekly Roundup #62: New Maker Products // News→

There's been a lot of speculation from the SBC community about what the Raspberry Pi 4 will look like and the Raspberry Pi Foundation has really kept the lid on it. However, I was recently given a pretty honorable opportunity. To road-test a prototype of the Raspberry Pi 4. Yeah!

The NanoPi NEO4 is probably the smallest RK3399 based SBC on the market currently. Does it have enough to take on the competition? Find out in this video. Continue reading NanoPi NEO4: Smallest RK3399 SBC. What is real, NEO? // Review→

The Orange Pi RK3399 is yet another board to join the ranks of RockChip RK3399 based SBCs. In true Orange Pi fashion, they give you everything, but is this SBC worth it? Continue reading Orange Pi RK3399: HDMI recording on a budget // Review→

This quick project shows you how to build an MQTT controlled RGB LED matrix panel in under 30 minutes, but I reckon it should take you a lot less. Continue reading Build an MQTT based RGB LED panel! // Project→

Do you want to be able to send an SMS over 20kms without using a mobile phone network? Here's one small project you can knock up in less than a day allowing you to send an SMS over LoRa. Continue reading SMS over LoRa: Long distance SMS without 4G //

If you're a fan of GoLang then your options are limited in the embedded world. So, here's a couple of options for you with a working bare metal example for an STM32 MCU written entirely in Go. Continue reading Running GoLang on an STM32 MCU. A quick tutorial.→

This is the second part of my video on building a simple PCB using EasyEDA. This time we'll be taking a look at how to use a solder stencil, placing SMD components, soldering using kitchen equipment and how to fix up your mistakes. Continue reading Make a PCB from scratch

A follow-up to my video tutorial: "Program an Atmel SAM without an IDE". I've created a Docker container on GitHub with a complete ASF build chain. Ready to go. Go for it! Continue reading Atmel Software Framework and build chain in a Docker container→

A bit of a different mailbag this week. Containing a lot of bits and pieces for upcoming projects and other odds and ends. Continue reading MickMake Mail #30: Gakken, JLCPCB, wicking and skulls // News→